He had no right to be upset. Not to mention that it was illogical. No one used their real identity on the dark web. That would be stupid, and she was far from dumb.
However, he'd trusted Felicity. And then he’d trusted Zadie. The woman who’d saved his life more than once.
Now, in the quiet, with his adrenaline metabolized and the sky turning the color of a bruise, doubt about who this woman really was and what she wanted, needled his brain.
She’d said Darwin sent her. Darwin, who’d stood in that hallway and used the word accusation as if it were a reasonable response to a friend being marched out of a building by security guards. Darwin, who knew something was wrong and let it happen anyway.
Zadie set down her pack across from him and leaned her back against the concrete. She pulled her knees up, resting her arms on them.
"You're thinking hard," she said. "Care to share?"
"When did you figure out I was Flatline?"
"I didn’t. You told me."
"Alright. But you’re the one who dropped Felicity as a name. Like I was supposed to catch on. Why?"
"It was the first name I could think of because using my real name would’ve been sloppy."
"Still dangerous to use a name associated with one you use on the dark web."
"It’s a common enough name. It’s not associated with me or my career. Besides, I had no idea you were Flatline. If I had, our conversation on the way to the diner might have been different."
He believed her. He didn't want to, but he did. "Why were you asking about Blackridge on the dark web? What do they have to do with all of this?" He lowered himself to the ground across from her, his back against his pack. The surrounding sagebrush was tall enough to hide them and the wall blocked the wind. It wasn't comfortable, but it was defensible.
Zadie pulled a protein bar from her jacket and tore it open. She offered half to him.
His stomach growled, so he took it.
"Blackridge Security was connected to Finch," she said. "We can support that, but we can’t prove it. Not with a paper trail anyway."
"Connected how?"
"The founder, Peter Ramsey, was using what we believe is TITAN to enhance his security teams. Again, we don’t have proof, except for what we’ve seen with our own eyes."
Gideon stopped chewing. TITAN. TTN-3. Darwin's compound—the one that combined VKR-1 and KTH-1 into a single protocol. He knew about it. He'd seen the early documentation when Darwin thought it might be a possibility. But then Darwin put it on hold indefinitely. It was too unstable. Not to mention VKR-1 had its own set of problems, even if it was being used on the battlefield on a limited basis. As long as KTH-1 was given early enough, the benefits outweighed the risks.
"I know a little about it," he said. "But TITAN was never manufactured."
"We believe it was, and that Finch used Ramsey's firm and his men as a test run," she said. "He sent enhanced operatives to kill me and my team."
The protein bar sat like chalk in his mouth. He made himself chew and swallow because he needed the fuel, even if his stomach had other ideas.
"Darwin tried to help," she continued. "He found out what Finch was doing, and he tried to stop it. And for that, Finch made sure Darwin took the fall. He's wanted for murder and corporate espionage. None of it’s true, but the charges are real, and so is the warrant."
Gideon leaned his head back against his pack and stared at the sky. The first stars appeared through the haze, faint and indifferent.
He turned her words over the way he'd turn over a line of code, looking for the flaw. Just a few months ago, he would have believed them without question. Darwin was the most principled person he'd ever worked with. The kind of man who lost sleep over theoretical harm, who designed safeguards into compounds that hadn't even been approved for testing yet.
But he’d also stood in a hallway and let Gideon walk into an elevator with his career reduced to an NDA.
"He didn't stand up for me," Gideon said. It came out quieter than he’d intended, and his tone held no real bite. "He fought to have me hired. He was the one who recruited me, and he’s the one who watched me walk without saying a single word in my defense."
"And he’s regretted that decision for as long as I’ve known him." Zadie pulled two thin thermal blankets from her pack, shaking them out. "Darwin has spent every day since trying to undo what Finch has done. He saved our lives. He's the reason we're still breathing."
Gideon watched her spread the blanket on the ground beside her pack. She sat in the middle of it, running her fingers through the ends of her long braid. Her movements were unhurried now, the operational edge softened into something calmer and more feminine, and it did something to the air between them that he wasn't prepared for.
She patted the blanket beside her as she opened the second one. "It’s going to get chilly tonight."
